I Believe in Grieving

Even though my best friend died, I personally never attended an entire funeral. I couldn’t stay the entire service, I just couldn’t. The main reason I didn’t stay in the funeral, was because I disliked all the sad looks I was getting. Everyone carelessly said sorry for the loss, but not one of them really knew my best friend. They were family, but not once did they stay up all night, or drive through state lines just to make him feel better. Not once in his life did they ever understand who he really was, and how much he wanted to be accepted.

In my memory his death didn’t happen in one moment, instead it was a series of different events. There was the car crash. Then, the hospital, where he laid in a bed in a coma. Days after that, he was pronounced dead. I never really knew if he died while in a coma, I don’t even know if that’s possible. What I do know is that the knowledge that he may have died because his life support was taken, made it harder for me to grieve. Those days for me were like a year. Everything happened so slowly, I felt like I should have been able to do something, but I couldn’t. When he died, I was bitter and angry at everyone, not because I blamed them, but because I didn’t want to allow myself to feel sad.

His death taught me the meaning of life. It taught me how bad I could really feel, and how much people take for granted. I also learned how different people really are. I heard the words; “move on” and “let it go.” But how is that really possible? Death is something one should carry with them forever. There is no such a thing as moving on when someone you truly love dies, it’s not possible to let go of love and pain like that. In the moment of solitude, I believed in grieving.

However, the death of someone I loved at such a young age didn’t negatively mark me for long. Learning how to grieve, and how to deal with his death is an everyday thing. I won’t let it go because I want to remember him for the rest of my life. I won’t move on, because I want him to see me grow and become the person he always knew I was going to be. I’m not angry or bitter anymore, because I’ve allowed myself to grieve.

In the midst of death I felt alive. While being overwhelmed by so many emotions, I learned how to grieve. And he will always be immortal as long as I’m alive, and even when I get to see him again, he will be alive in someone’s memory. As long as these words I wrote exist.

Shop on Amazon and support This I Believe

We receive up to 10% of every purchase you make on Amazon through this link. So do all your holiday shopping here and help support This I Believe!

Top 100 Essays USB Drive

This USB drive contains 100 of the top This I Believe audio broadcasts of the last ten years, plus some favorites from Edward R. Murrow's radio series of the 1950s. It's perfect for personal or classroom use! Click here to learn more.

This week’s essay

Growing up in the former Yugoslavia, lawyer Djenita Pasic enjoyed the peace of her religiously diverse country. But after the fall of communism and the outbreak of the Bosnian War, Pasic was forced to reevaluate her ideas about religion and tolerance. Click here to read her essay.